Bulgaria is the second largest number of registered cars per capita in Southeast Europe, reveals a report by SeeNews, prepared by Tsvetan Ivanov. From the analysis of the region and its galloping growth in terms of car sales, it is clear that Bulgaria is second only to Slovenia on personal cars per capita. There are 443 cars in our country, while in Slovenia (where only 200,000 cars were manufactured last year alone), this number is 531. Croatia ranks third (374) and Romania is the fourth (261). In terms of sales growth, however, Bulgaria managed to overtake Slovenia. The density of our cars is still the same as that of the old EU member states such as Italy (601), Germany (566), Switzerland (524) and others. According to data from 2010, the world's leading car driver is "dwarf" San Marino - 1139 vehicles per 1000 people.
The report, named "South East Europe: The New Hot Spot in the Automotive Market", views the region as key to the industry - not only because of its expansion as a market, but also because of the leading role of automotive production in Romania, Slovenia and Serbia. Not only in Romania, but also in Southeast Europe as a whole, the company with the largest revenue is Dacia. FCA Srbija, which operates the Fiat plant in our western neighbor, is the third largest company in the country and the first to export. Countries like ours and Macedonia are also becoming more and more important - because, without producing whole cars, their role as a component maker is becoming more and more important. According to data for 2017, the automotive component manufacturers have a total of 170 and employ over 40,000 people. Companies of this type generated 4% of Bulgarian GDP last year - and the good thing is that many of them plan to expand their business and open jobs outside the capital.